Angela Frewen

 Today I'm going to wrap up things Christmassy by talking about - yes, that's right, wrapping paper!    Back in my 1970s childhood you bought wrapping paper in sheets, not rolls. It varied in quality from ultra cheap, but nonetheless cheerful to deluxe. The cheaper variety was a bit thinner and more fragile than the more expensive, but the main difference was in the quality of the colour printing which was noticeably inferior. By the time I was about eight, I was considered old enough to do my own Christmas shopping, and even then I never bought the cheapest.  I can't remember exactly how much it cost but I think the cheap paper was about two pence per sheet and the prices went up to about ten pence per sheet. Any child of the 60s or 70s will probably remember the distinctive smell of that lovely wrapping paper and the crisp feel of the new sheets. There were no gift bags back then. Wrapping presents was time consuming and almost ritualistic. Presents for friends and acquai

 This post is a general round-up of some things Christmassy that a child of the 1960s or 1970s will remember! First of all, no Christmas of those decades was truly Christmas unless you had an artificial Christmas tree :) These were frequently purchased in that great old standby, Woolworths and unlike the artificial trees of today which try very hard to look as realistic as possible, our trees were unashamedly fake. Most people still favoured the traditional green but the more daring went for silver.  I can recall quite clearly that there was  a bit of a class divide around Christmas deorations and some of the more garish and flashy items were denounced as 'common'. Although everybody shopped in Woolworths, for at least some of their Christmas acoutrements, they didn't want to look as if their house had been entirely decked out with Woolies' finest ;) Speaking of Woolies, brings me on to fairylights.  During my childhood these were still rather temperamental things which

  A little gift from me to you - from Friday 10th December to Sunday 12th December, you can get the ebook version of The Little World of The Lindens for free. 😊